It's not the porn, it's how you watch it.

For decades there's been a lot of debate about exactly how harmful it is to watch and consume porn. There have been valid points on all sides; 

One idea being the way in which porn can be positive in facilitating people in accessing their desires and learning new things are about their sexuality. It’s also a platform to witness varied forms of sexual expression with the potential for individuals to get in touch with what feels right for them. This can especially be true for ‘alternative’ sexuality groups. 

We are also very aware of how porn can be an addictive or compulsive habit that can negatively affect the way that we relate to other people and our own body, how we engage in sex in our day to day life and how people can mistake the fantasy and the performance of porn for what authentic sexuality looks (and feels) like. 

But is it really porn that's the problem, or is it the way we consume it? 

Now, I'm not going to deny that there is some pretty heinous porn out there that is very abusive and harmful. I don’t think anyone really needs to debate about the dark sides of the industry and the content on the dark web, so I want to keep this conversation around the ‘usual’ general porn and erotic content that your ‘average’ person is consuming. Generally a lot of porn is a performative fantasy of some kinky and wild sex that people wish they were having and it isn’t something to be labeled as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ when it’s all consensual and ethical.

In my opinion, often the real issue is our relationship to porn, our sexualities and our bodies that creates addictive and compulsive behavior that can negatively affect our relationship to ourselves and others. 

I have worked with cis-men that present with a desire to overcome porn addiction and learn ways in which they can begin to feel more pleasure and sensitivity in their bodies. Through exploration of learning self pleasure and the experience of eroticism in their body without a visual stimulus and fantasy, it can reportedly be challenging as it’s a change in programming from focus primarily on visual stimulation and then ejaculatory response, to deeper connection with bodily sensations and being present and loving with themselves.  

In my experience working with cis-women, it is also a common theme. With the need to use aids such as vibrators or fantasies/ visual stimulus to create enough turn-on to orgasm. Often there can be conditions in idolization of performative acts of sexuality; to compare and ‘try to act the part’ to be desired and worthy, rather than their desire coming from their own sensual and sexual essence. 

So what would it look like to have an embodied experience with watching porn?

When we talk about ‘embodiment’ we mean being fully present in the body, not numbing out or dissociating, which tends to be quite a standard way of experiencing life and sexuality in our repressed and traumatized society.. This is especially true for the consumption of porn. This dissociative, disembodied experience tends to come from shame, trauma and general negative thought patterns that people have in relation to whatever they're doing. We live in a sex negative society that says that watching porn is something to be ashamed of and that sex in general is something that is dirty, taboo, weird or wrong in some way (well sex beyond the obviously heteronormative missionary procreative type of sex). Individuals have this shame, repression and self judgment present while they are watching porn which creates this segregation of the psyche.

People can be masturbating and experience something that is what they might consider a pleasurable experience of reaching orgasm, or having pleasure stimulation and feeling aroused, although what a lot of people are experiencing barely scratches the surface of our erotic and pleasure potential. It is often a relatively disconnected release of tension with a mental turn-on that is more related to doing something ‘taboo’ rather than an integrated and embodied expression of their desire and eros. 

This example reflects why individuals don't feel satisfied after watching just one video and it becomes a compulsive behavior.. they aren't getting this deep satisfaction and experience they desire, they're just consuming and simultaneously stimulating their genitals. This creates the kind of separation between themselves and the erotic interaction they’re watching.

A big part of my work is teaching self pleasure courses and coaching people on how to experience embodied, conscious and even sacred types of self pleasure and self worship. Often a big step in this process is to move away from any kind visual stimulation for a period of time and to entirely turn the focus onto the body. This allows the creation of a new relationship with the body and ways to experience turn on and eroticism purely from their own internal world and erotic power. I believe this is a step that shouldn't be overlooked and that for some people, detoxing off any kind of visual stimulation like porn allows for a deeper reconnection to self. 

Although I also believe, it doesn’t need to be black and white where the only kind of conscious pleasure or masturbation experiences don’t include any visual stimulus. 

So, how then do we bridge this gap? 

How can we watch erotica or even being a voyeur at a sex party (or other kind of kinky erotic place) while staying really connected to our body, our power and be engaged in a way that is not purely consumptive? 

When we were creating Awakened Eros, it was really important for us to feel into this questions with knowledge of the issues at hand being; dissociative, consumptive viewing habits.

As an embodiment professional who works with conscious sexuality and deconditioning shame and sexual repression, part of the experiment is to see what it's like to have a type of erotica that people can watch and witness that doesn't just create this separation and this dissociation. How do we create a space that awakens people's own erotic power and guides them deeper into their body, deeper into love and acceptance of their sexuality? 

Part of what we did to combat this is to provide embodiment exercises with each erotica clip that we show so that people can not only watch, witness and be entranced by the beautiful erotica available within the portal,  but to give people a felt sense of the transmission through guided experiences. Allowing individuals to drop deeper into the body and into their own sexuality.

To create a way that melts away the sense of separation between the individuals creating the content and the people receiving it. 

There are many many different ways that people can go about approaching this.. really it starts with the viewer and their relationship to their body and their sexuality. Getting in touch with their pleasure and making a conscious choice to give themselves permission to really feel. No more numbing, no more disconnection. 

Then we can experience the erotic with presence, pleasure and power.